Janie’s skin color is lighter than most of the people in the book. Her mother was half white and half black and was raped by a caucasian man which created Janie. Janie had light skin, her light skin gave her many advantages such as more opportunities, people treating Janie kindly and also being more respected. Janie was treated differently by most of the people in her life such as Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner is a light skinned woman that was married to a dark skinned man. Mrs. Turner does not like dark skinned people and likes only light skinned people like Janie. She thinks that Janie is better than herself because of her lighter skin color. She treats all light skinned people kindly and dark skinned people unkindly. She is always speaking good of light skinned people but badly about dark skinned people. She says "And dey makes me tired. Always …show more content…
Mrs. Turner says she does not approve of Teacake with Janie because she thinks he is too dark for Janie and Mrs. Turner wants Janie to marry her light skinned brother instead. She says "You got mo’ nerve than me. Ah jus’ couldn’t see mahself married to no black man. It’s too many black folks already. We oughta lighten up de race”(140). Mrs. Turner also treats Teacake differently by not wanting his help and telling her husband to hit Teacake when the fight breaks out at her restaurant. A fight was happening at Mrs. Turner’s restaurant and Teacake tries to stop it but he couldn’t handle the situation so a fight breaks out. During the fight, Mrs. Turner grabs him by the arm and says “Dat’s all right, Tea Cake, Ah ‘preciate yo’ help, but leave ‘em alone”(151). She then somehow falls down and was down there under the fighting. When the fight stops, she yells at her husband for not hitting Teacake. She says “You seen dat Tea Cake shove me down! Yes you did! You ain’t raised yo’ hand tuh do nothin’ about